Business

Making it in the restaurant business isn’t only difficult; it can feel downright impossible. Successful restaurants aren’t successful due to dumb luck. They reach success as a result of hard work and dedication.

In addition to being willing to break a sweat, and put in the elbow grease that it takes over the first few years, your restaurants should also have the following elements.

Convenience

In some cases, people will end up at your restaurant because it’s the most convenient option. Whether you have an ATM machine that attracts them in, or perhaps you have the best lunch special during their work break, it’s all about offering something that makes people’s lives easier.

When creating the business plan for your restaurant, make sure that y you’re considering what will make your restaurant stand out from the rest. With so many other options around, you can’t expect someone to choose you unless you give them a good reason!

Friendly Staff

People love to be treated well when they’re paying money to eat or drink out. One of the best things that you can do for your business is to assemble a fantastic staff that treats their customers like old friends.

In addition to making sure your staff has a great attitude when handling customers, it’s also vital that they have a great attitude amongst themselves. You’ll get the most out of your staff if everyone gets along and functions as a team.

Simple Yet Great Menu

There are few things more overwhelming than opening a menu and not knowing where to look. Page after page of food options may seem like you’re doing your clients a favor. However, in reality, you’re giving them way too much work to do. Offer a few delicious items rather than a million mediocre ones.

Additionally, it’s hard for your staff to keep up with high-quality dishes if you offer too many options. Your ingredients should be as fresh as possible, which is hard to do when you offer too many choices.

Seating

You can have the greatest restaurant in the world, but people are going to stop going if they never have a place to sit. You should be able to serve as many people as your staff can handle. Offer plenty of seating in order to accommodate the demands of your clients!

Social Media Following

While word of mouth can be incredibly effective, yet nothing beats the power of the internet. You can attract a significant amount of customers by having a strong social media presence!

If you’ve always wanted to own your own restaurant but aren’t sure where to begin, make sure you incorporate these five elements, and you can’t go wrong.

 

Social media is super popular and it plays an essential role in any digital marketing strategy. As business owner you’d really be missing out if you don’t have some sort of presence on social media. Realistically speaking, navigating the realm of social media can be tricky. Managing a social media profile (or two) also requires a little more skill and know-how than simply posting a funny meme.

But who has the time to learn a whole new skill-set? Fortunately you don’t have to let your social media presence suffer in mediocrity. You could sign up for a social media marketing course to become the social media savant your business needs. Or you could hire an in-house social media manager.

What Is A Social Media Manager?

Social media managers usually exist in the marketing and public relations departments of large corporations. A social media manager is someone who is tasked with guiding the social media presence of a brand, organization or individual. They create content for social platforms as well as monitor and measure the effectiveness of social media strategies.

What Exactly Does A Social Media Manager Do?

Social media managers play a significant role in any organization. They serve as the voice and identity of the organization in the digital space. And they are often the first point-of-contact for online customers.

Social media managers develop social media marketing strategies and create engaging content for the betterment of the organization. They are also tasked with analyzing sentiments about the organization while monitoring audience feedback and engagement. This is why a social media manager is an integral part of any digital marketing team.

Why Every Business Needs An In-House Social Media Manager

Social media has become a dominant force in the business world. As a result, almost every business has a social media presence. Being active on social media means you need someone with exceptional communication and planning skills to manage your social presence. Here are a few important reasons why an in-house social media manager is a must.

• Social Media Strategy

We already know there’s more to social media than sharing promotional posts, random quotes or memes. This sort of haphazard social presence will do a disservice to your business. By hiring a social media manager you have someone who is passionate about developing social media strategies. They enjoy taking over all aspects of your social media efforts and are committed to creating content for your social presence.

• Social Media Is Always Changing

The social media landscape is always changing. Having a social media manager will help your business keep track of any new trends and changes to algorithms within each platform. They will also ensure your strategy and content are updated based on these changes.

• Understanding Your Business

An in-house social media manager will know the specific intricacies of your business when brainstorming social campaigns and strategies. They will also understand the culture, values and message your business wants to convey on social media. This is great for business because your social media manager will always know exactly what needs to be done online.

• Content In Line With Goals

Your social media manager will know what your primary business goals are and translate them into social media content and campaigns. They will create content that is mindful of your other marketing efforts. A social manager will also develop a social media calendar which explains the nature of the campaigns (paid and organic) that will be carried out on a monthly basis.

• Reputation Management

Social media managers are tasked with managing the reputation of your business online. They are always aware of every message, review, and comment on social media regarding your business. Social media managers have the right process in place to defuse any sort of crisis that may arise on social platforms. They have the skills to and assist customers and solve issues without escalating the situation. As organizational representatives they’re aware of how to conduct themselves in a professional manner.

• Reporting and Tracking

Having someone on staff that is in charge of all your social media efforts will improve existing social media strategies and campaigns. A social media manager will monitor the success rate of campaigns regularly and make the necessary adjustments to the content or campaigns as needed. They will also be aware of the “expiration date” of a specific tactic or trend over time and will know if it needs to be changed.

 

Are you a member of the food industry? Perhaps you’re wanting to join it? Either way, you’ll no doubt want to make your mark on the sector – and very often, the best way to do this is with a unique business idea. Once you’ve kitted out your kitchen, it’s time to start thinking some up. With this in mind, we explore some truly original market trends…

Zero-waste kitchens

As profitable as the food market is, many restaurant owners are guilty of not managing their kitchen waste effectively. As you’ll no doubt know already, plastic takes an extremely long time to biodegrade – send it to landfill, and it will contribute to land, water and air pollution. And of course, the restaurant trade has typically relied on plastic containers for food storage- until now, that is. A growing movement is seeing caterers ditch non-renewable packaging for more eco-friendly solutions. So, why not join this planet-centred cooking trend?

No to low alcohol options

If you offer alcohol to your clients, you may have noted that more young adults are opting for soft drinks. No to low alcohol options are a booming trend among Brits. A study led by University College London involving 10, 000 16 – 24-year-olds from the UK found a drop in the number of young Brits choosing to drink alcohol. Why? Scientists suggest a greater awareness of the health effects that alcohol can have as a leading cause. Unsurprisingly, a number of bars and restaurants across the country have begun to expand their mocktail and no alcohol drinks menu, in order to attract more young customers.

Fermented food (and drink!)

Yes, you read that right! Fermented food and drink have been introduced to several menus across the UK. Why? It’s fairly simple! Fermented produce is filled with good bacteria; eating it could hugely benefit your gut. As nutritionists are keen to underline, a healthy gut is vital for our general health and helps to boost both our physical and mental wellbeing. And so, many forward-thinking restaurants have begun to serve an array of fermented delights, from sour-milk Kefir to tempeh-based meals. Get yourself on the health food map by offering similar treats to your customers!

Though it may seem like a crowded market, it’s easy to stand out in the food industry. All you need to do is give your diners a culinary experience to remember!

 

As you now know, online ecommerce retailers can grow exponentially if they can establish a strong and reliable product supply base, can brand themselves effectively, market themselves successfully, and deliver great customer service. But as an ecommerce business grows, issues related to scale emerge, and often they find that their efficiency decreases resulting in customer complaints centered around the right product being delivered on time. This highlights how important the ecommerce order management process flow is to an online business, it is like the cardiac system, if its not flowing properly then the business will falter and die. All it takes is a handful of negative reviews and suddenly your business goes from hero to zero.

How to Improve Your Ecommerce Order Management Process Flow

So if the order management process flow is so key to the operation of a successful business, what can you do to make it more efficient and fix all the inefficiencies revealed by scalability. The core solution to this is to automate the link between the ecommerce platform used and an ERP system which manages fulfillment of the order. The automation of this process cuts out time, human and error and cost from the order process and should exceed your customer’s expectations as well.

Whether you’re using Magento, Shopify, Amazon Marketplace or a WooCommerce solution, you can buy a software solution which will integrate it directly with your ERP solution and other systems such as SAP, NetSuite, Microsoft Dynamics, Quickbooks, Xero, or Acumatica.

What these software solutions do is integrate your online orders directly and rapidly into your ERP and accounting systems so that you eliminate the labor costs of accounting book keeping, and manual data entry which slows down order processing and often results in occasional errors. This can also reduce compliance-related penalties and allow for integration and validation of EDI data creating a unified system.

Fulfillment of orders can be delivered through your own warehouse or direct to your suppliers if you also integrate dropship software. Inventory updates are instant and can be queried at any point, with re-ordering automated based on thresholds and rules set by users. Inventory levels can also be integrated with your e-commerce platform and with your ecommerce partners such as Amazon and Buy.com, allowing your end customer to check if the product is in stock and have a realistic idea of delivery date, even setting their own delivery date.

Integration with transport suppliers and fulfillment services allows for quicker fulfilment and order tracking for you and for your end customer, enabling even real-time viewing of the order track and delivery time within an hour slot. This is particularly good when you are using a drop-ship vendor, because you will no longer need to contact the vendor for information on the order when a customer enquires about timeliness of delivery, the customer can see themselves the whole supply chain and be given a realistic delivery time.

So the time could be right now to improve your ecommerce order management process flow.

 

Despite the extra attention which is now being given to cybersecurity there is still a huge number of business owners who don’t quite understand what the damage which a cyber attack could really be and how it could affect their company. This is one of the biggest threats which is facing businesses at the moment yet there are still so many who believe that increasing security looks like adding new cameras and more guards. To help us understand a little more about the clear dangers which a cyberattack can have on your business, we must first realize just what could happen in the event of a system breach from a cyber criminal. To help us with that, we spoke to industry expert Bharat Bhise HNA, who knows only too well what these risks are.

Personal Details

Very often we see hackers who are looking to break into systems in order to obtain personal details. These can be details of the clients who you look after or your own staff. In many cases they will do this in order to sell the information on, to people who will then use such details to commit identity fraud. In many criminal cases where people have traveled to other countries or passed through certain systems, they have done so using fake names and passports, they get the information from hackers who have taken it from business owners just like you. This is one of the biggest risks to your business, the loss of the personal details which people have entrusted you with.

Expense

The cost of a cyber attack, even for a small business can be huge. You must remember that once you have been hacked you will need to have your entire system reviewed, locked down and then beefed up in terms of security. Any damage to software or hardware which has been caused will also need to be fixed, and the price will just keep rising. Something else which is going to cost you a lot of money is the fact that your business is going to be out of action for at least a day, perhaps more. The cost of reparations and the fall out after an attack is huge, which is why it makes so much more sense to invest now and prevent it from happening. The investment in cybersecurity will be significantly cheaper than the cost of fixing things after it has happened.

Loss of Trust

The trust between you and your customers and other businesses who you work with is so incredibly hard to gain, yet so easy to throw away. If your systems are breached and important personal details or trade secrets are stolen, you are going to completely lose the trust of your partners and your customers. This will be something which takes years to recover from and certainly something which no business needs.

Don’t run the risk, invest in cybersecurity today.